Theoretically? Yes. Practically? No.
Despite the encouragements in Scripture for Christians to consider lifetime singleness, the stated value of celibacy, the promise of a gift to thrive in this vocation, a promise of an 100-fold blessing in this life, Jesus radically lifting up celibacy from being a curse for a few to a normative vocation for many, and the countless examples of celibate Christian leaders throughout history including Jesus and Paul—despite all of this, our churches don’t teach the rich theology of lifetime singleness in Scripture, and there is little support for celibate Christians, leading to painful results for the Church.
The Church fails to teach about, model, help people discern a calling to, support, or celebrate lifetime singleness. Instead, we hear false teachings that celibacy is loneliness for the sake of the gospel, that marriage is better and more beautiful than celibacy, and that you only have to be celibate if God disrupts your life and gives you an undeniable call. We teach that it is our choice whether we get married or commit to celibacy. We hear that celibacy is only for asexual people or it’s only for gay people or it’s only for those people who don’t want to be married or have children. Somehow, our churches are stuck in Old Testament theology of marriage and singleness. We don’t grow up seeing thriving in celibacy modeled in our churches. Our churches don’t invite anyone to discern whether God has called them to celibacy or marriage. And while a laundry list of days celebrate the vocation of marriage—engagement parties, marriages, wedding anniversaries, baby showers, baptisms, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day—nothing marks and celebrates the vocation of celibacy.
What are the results?
Single people suffer.
48% of Americans are not married and 4 out of 5 single people consider themselves to be Christians, yet single people struggle with loneliness and can’t find meaningful family in the body of Christ. This leads to depression, suicidality, sex outside of marriage, and hasty marriages. A 2008 study found that single people are more likely to struggle with loneliness, depression, and anxiety, and another study found that loneliness is a bigger health risk than smoking or obesity. In response to this loneliness, 80% of Christian have sex before marriage and over 41% of Christians believe cohabitation is wise. Churches optimized for the vocation of marriage hurt single people because celibates fall through the cracks in between the loose patchwork of nuclear families. Without teaching about the practical and theological beauty of lifetime singleness, celibate Christians don’t know how to think about or walk out their vocation. Many of us are plagued with doubt about whether God exists because we don’t experience a physical embodiment of God’s love in the form of family. A 2017 study found that single people were less likely to rebound from doubt and more likely to lose their faith. All of this makes it difficult for people to commit to celibacy and for celibate people to make spiritual families of their own.
Married people suffer.
Without a robust theology and practice of lifetime singleness, people rush into marriage, leading to adultery and divorce. 33% of Christian marriages end in divorce—at the same rate as non-Christians. Marriage is perverted from being a beautiful vocation with specific theological and missional purposes for some to being merely a vehicle for guilt-free romance and sex for any Christian who wants to take it. We don’t ask God what His best is for us, and we dive into marriage for the wrong reasons and with the wrong expectations. Without a meaningful minority of Christians committed to lifetime singleness, nuclear families struggle to raise their kids because they don’t have the help of celibate Christians. And because kids grow up seeing marriage as the only option and used in these ways, the pattern of suffering continues.
Widows, divorcees, women, and gay Christians suffer.
These people on the margins are disproportionately affected by our poverty of teaching and support of lifetime singleness. While gay Christians may be most acutely affected by a poor theology and practice of celibacy, women are certainly most numerously affected. A 2018 study found that there are 50% more single women than single men in the Church. Because of the fewer number of faithful men in the Church, many single women involuntarily continue in singleness because the numbers just aren’t there. Widows and divorcees re-enter singleness to find a Church that will not support them.
The world suffers.
In light of the mounting pain and brokenness in the world around us, a powerful minority of Christians wholly committed to advancing the Kingdom through lifetime singleness is needed now more than ever. Our churches are suffering from a famine of lay leadership, our churches need better teaching, nuclear families need more support, wealth inequality has deepened, racial tensions have risen, immigrants and refugees lack advocacy, and our churches struggle to care for those managing mental illness. There are not enough workers available to do the work of the Church.
The gospel suffers.
All of this tarnishes the good news. Believers struggle to experience the reality of the gospel in this life, and the reflection of God’s love we offer the world is ugly. Without a meaningful minority of Christians thriving in celibacy and doing the work of the Church, we lack a key Sacrament—we lack this unique embodiment of the truth of the gospel. In contrast to the idolatry of romance inside and outside of our churches, lifetime singleness preaches the gospel that God is worth giving up everything and can provide more than the gods of our culture ever could.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
The Church can return to a healthy theology of lifetime singleness and start supporting single people again so that they can thrive in their calling for their sake, for the sake of the world, and for the sake of the gospel.
Jessica
Was the conference ever uploaded as something that someone could listen to or read?
Pieter Valk
Not yet, but I’m happy to give you access to the recording and handout if you email me at pieter@equipyourcommunity.org!
Jay
Being single can be very horrible without sharing your life with someone that really would make your life very complete. That is, if you’re very lucky to find the one. Finding love in the old days was very easy compared to today, which is why many of us good men are still single today because of this. Women today are very completely different from the old days, which many of us men would’ve been married already had we been born back then.
John z
This sounds so much like the church should and can simply talk people into liking their singleness . I think the message that singles should stop their complaining is loud and clear from many ministries for at least some decades now. Don’t shout even louder a message that has already alienated many unmarried Christians. Some lifelong singles will experience great pain in life from this and trying to force feed Single Celibate Happiness Talk on them will not help. I truly wish when I was young instead of only hearing how difficult marriage is I also would have heard an honest voice tell me how difficult never marrying and trying to suppress God given desires a lifetime would be. As much as I hate to say it I’m not sure I believe the church is capable of dealing with this issue without pushing some Christians farther away.
Pieter Valk
John Z, thanks for sharing your concern. The point of this article and the training we offered pastors and parents was to do exactly what you wished churches would do. We believe churches need to make significant structural changes to become places where people called to vocational singleness can thrive with reasonable effort, regardless of sexual orientation.
James Wesley
I think a lot of this depends on whether or not you desire marriage.
If you’re a Christian single, and you’re genuinely content with that, and you lack the desire for romance/marriage/intimacy/sex, that’s one thing. If you’re a Christian single, and you DO desire these things, well, that’s completely different.
Like you said, Scripture encourages us to CONSIDER lifetime singleness. Nowhere does the Bible demand this. In his teaching on celibacy, Jesus did not demand it. In HIS teaching on celibacy, Paul didn’t demand it, either.
Why don’t churches teach the “rich theology of lifetime singleness”? Well, I think there’s a couple reasons. In my experience, pastors are always married, so they can’t really relate to it. And the Bible simply has more to say about marriage than singleness, so it’s just easier to teach more sermons about it. You also mention that there is little support for celibate Christians in church. This is often true. I can only speak for myself here, as a singe man who would rather be married, but, personally, this isn’t something I talk about much in church, and I think lots of people can bottle these things up in church, so you’re kinda invisible. Pastors aren’t mind readers. If you want your church to help you out more in this area, well, you’ll have to talk to someone about it, and, hopefully, they can help you in practical ways. I don’t like making big, sweeping blanket statement about how “The Church” fails in this or that area. That’s easy to do. People do it all the time. If you need their help, you’ll have to talk to someone about it. If their answers are unhelpful, you’ll need to even more about it.
“We hear false teachings that celibacy is loneliness for the sake of the gospel, that marriage is better and more beautiful than celibacy, and that you only have to be celibate if God disrupts your life and gives you an undeniable call.” I haven’t heard these teachings all that much. Well, maybe the last one. But why is that a “false” teaching? The Bible doesn’t demand that anyone stay celibate. You either want marriage or you don’t. And both Jesus and Paul said that it’s OK to pursue marriage.
“We teach that it is our choice whether we get married or commit to celibacy. ” Why is THIS a false teaching? Jesus said that celibacy isn’t for everyone. And Paul made lots of statements along the same lines.
“Our churches don’t invite anyone to discern whether God has called them to celibacy or marriage.” How do you discern that? If you have no desire to marry, or sexual desire, then, yeah, you can stay celibate. You don’t have to get married. If you DO have sexual desires, and you DO have the desire to marry, it’s OK to pursue that, too. Jesus and Paul both allowed for that. Is it really all that complicated?
“And while a laundry list of days celebrate the vocation of marriage—engagement parties, marriages, wedding anniversaries, baby showers, baptisms, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day—nothing marks and celebrates the vocation of celibacy.”
OK, but, uh……how are you SUPPOSED to celebrate it, exactly? I have no idea. Create a new national holiday? Throw a big party at church? I have no idea, practically speaking. I mean, I’m single and celibate, and I don’t want some unique holiday so I can feel special and validated. I want to be married. Hahaha! I’ll celebrate my relationship status with a wedding, preferably, lol. And if marriage doesn’t work out……oh, well. I’ll deal with that. We have to deal with lots of bad things, dashed hopes, and ruined dreams in this fallen world. That’s life, until we get to Heaven, where none of this will matter anymore.
“Marriage is perverted from being a beautiful vocation with specific theological and missional purposes for some to being merely a vehicle for guilt-free romance and sex for any Christian who wants to take it. ” OK, I can only speak for myself, but personally, I have NEVER heard marriage taught like this in any church I have ever been in.
I know marriage isn’t MERELY “a vehicle for guilt-free romance and sex.” But, if we’re being honest, those desires DO play a role in our longing for marriage (if you happen to desire marriage) And that’s fine. Paul recognizes that in 1 Corinthians 7. It’s not bad to desire romance or sex. These desires are not sinful or even “worldly.” God created those things. He created them at the dawn of time. Marriage happened in the Garden of Eden. While Adam had a perfect, sinless relationship with God. God looked at Adam and said it wasn’t good for man to be alone. Isn’t that interesting? You mean even when he was totally with God, Adam still needed someone else? Whoops.
“Without a meaningful minority of Christians committed to lifetime singleness, nuclear families struggle to raise their kids because they don’t have the help of celibate Christians. ” What? What does that mean? If I’m a father raising a family, and I don’t know anyone who’s practicing celibacy, then I’m going to struggle with how to raise my kids? I’ve never heard that one before. I don’t understand that, to be honest. You also mention that “kids grow up seeing marriage as the only option.” They do? I grew up in a family where my parents were married because….well…..how it could be otherwise? Hahaha! But marriage is something I genuinely desire on my own. It’s not because I view marriage as my “only option.” I’ve never had anyone teach me that.
If you’re single, and you’re content with being single, and you lack the desire for romance/marriage/sex, well, great. Good for you. More power to you. Sometimes I wish I was like that, but I’m not.
“Because of the fewer number of faithful men in the Church, many single women involuntarily continue in singleness because the numbers just aren’t there. ” This is a great point, actually. But, like you said, some of us are single involuntarily. You either want marriage or you don’t. If I lacked the desire for marriage, well, I wouldn’t need the church to constantly give me validation about that. I could just go on living my life. Why would I pursue marriage if I didn’t want it?
“A powerful minority of Christians wholly committed to advancing the Kingdom through lifetime singleness is needed now more than ever. ” Maybe these people already exist. Personally, I’m single at the moment, but I have no desire for “lifetime singleness.” So why would I commit to that?
You also mention the “idolatry of romance.” Look, just because someone has the strong desire for romance, doesn’t automatically mean that they’re idolizing it. And just because a church might be helping some Christians deal with these desires doesn’t mean that church is idolizing it, either. These desires are normal.
This may be a bit of a tangent, but when you’re a Christian single and you openly express your desire for marriage, well-meaning people will often warn you about “idolatry.”
This can be kinda annoying or condescending, to be honest. it seems like every time singles express the desire, somebody will throw out the old “idolatry” warning. Or when someone writes or preaches about marriage to singles, they start with the caveat that wanting marriage is good “as long as you don’t make an idol out of it,” or something like that. I wonder how many Christians keep quiet about this desire, or minimize it, because they don’t want to hear these sorts of things.
You can, however, desire a romance/marriage/sex badly without making it an “idol,” though. In 1 Corinthians 7 Paul talks about people who “burn with passion,” but he doesn’t accuse them of idolatry. He encourages them to marry.
I wonder if this has any negative consequences. Can the desire for marriage really become an idol? Yeah, sure, technically, probably. But I think people can blow that notion out of proportion. It might cause some people to be tepid in their approach to marriage, and make them afraid that any amount of thinking or acting on their desire might be somehow sinful. Both, of course, have the unfortunate consequence of making marriage even less likely to happen. Isn’t that ironic?
In the Bible, when verses talk about “idols,” they’re almost always talking about physical idols, from other pagan religions. And, sure, some people can be unreasonable and put marriage and romance up on an impossible pedestal. But I don’t think most people do that; they simply have a strong desire, and they can’t help it. In Timothy 4:1-5, interestingly, Paul talks about demonic doctrines, and one of them he lists is “men who forbid marriage.” If Paul wrote the book of Hebrews, he also said that marriage something that should be honored.
Paul also wrote that “But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband” (1 Corinthians 7:2). I think it’s unlikely that a godly desire for a biblical marriage would become a real idol. And biblical marriage seems to be the antidote to much of the real idolatry — “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed” — that we see in the world.
Also, look at some biblical examples of parenthood. Rebekah was barren and prayed for a child. Rachel was heartbroken about her barrenness and basically demanded children from Jacob. Hannah cried bitterly and openly about her inability to have children, and Eli (after misunderstanding her) prayed for God to grant her request. These women had strong and passionate desires for good things that God designed, and openly expressed their pain when these things didn’t come to pass. Nowhere in the Bible are these people criticized or condemned for “idolatry.”
People mean well when they warn singles about turning their desires into “idolatry,” but I think they can overdo it sometimes.